We Are Pilots
by Annaleise Marie
Summary: As a human, Mary Alice Brandon fell in love with the insufferable William Darby. Her attempts to keep him happy and in love with her land her in a struggle for her sanity, and her life. A/OMC, A/J /better summary inside - would not fit in the word limit/


**We Are Pilots  
**Annaleise Marie

**Summary**: In 1918, seventeen-year-old Mary Alice Brandon fell in love with the young William Darby. She had no way of knowing that he was using her for the answers she may be able to provide. Her attempts to keep him happy and in love with her land her in a struggle for her sanity, and her life. The country is immersed in war, but Alice is engaged in a more desperate battle. With the hardest of trials comes the richest of rewards. Will Alice survive this? And is there something better waiting for her at the end?

**Chapter One**: Arrogant Adonis

**AN**: I am unclear as to whether or not Alice was called Mary, Alice, or Mary Alice when she was younger. In an attempt to help separate the narratives, I'm going to use Mary for her human life, and Alice for her life as a vampire.

Anyway, here we go. I own season two of Gilligan's Island on DVD. No joke. I do not, however, own Twilight. That belongs to Stephenie Meyer. That is also no joke.

---

My hands gripped the wrought-iron bars of my headboard as her hands pulled at my ankles, attempting to drag me out of bed. This was her third attempt at waking me up, so I guess she was getting a little impatient. It would be more annoying if it weren't an everyday event, but I suppose I've gotten used to it.

"Mary Brandon! Get out of bed!" she commanded, pulling harder. "You know, I'm getting _really _tired of having this fight with you every morning."

"It could be avoided if you would just let me sleep," I grumbled, pushing my face further into my pillow. "With all due respect," I amended as her grip on my ankles tightened. My mother was quite the woman, strong and determined. She seemed to have everything going for her: personality, drive, a good husband, a nice house, and at five-foot-ten with the figure of a twenty-year-old, plump lips and a well-defined face, an appearance that even the women in the less reputable magazines would envy. Really, I'm not sure where I got my appearance, not even breaking an even five feet and almost obnoxiously thin. I was probably the child of our scrawny milkman.

"Five more minutes," I pleaded.

"You've had five more minutes. You've had twenty, in fact. You're going to be late." She easily denied my request, swatting at my ankles, making me draw my knees up to my chest in surprise, forcing me onto my side and making me release my grip on the headboard. "You're seventeen years old, Mary. We shouldn't have to treat you like a child, anymore," she said as I sat up, groaning groggily.

"I know, I know," I sighed, standing and moving to my dresser.

"I'm serious. Next time you pull this, your father's going to be the one to deal with it," she warned.

"Oh, is he back from his business trip?" I asked, pulling my clothes for the day from my dresser. The answer never came and I turned around to find her looking at me, puzzled. "What?"

"Your father isn't away," she said. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm fine. I just could have sworn... I feel like he was away," I said.

"Well, you know your father. Always at the office," she said, but she still looked concerned. "He was here for dinner last night."

"Oh. Right," I mumbled. "I guess I'm just still tired."

"Yes... Well, get ready for school," she said, striding towards my bedroom door. "And don't you get back in bed!" she called over her shoulder right before the door clicked shut behind her.

---

"You are not wearing that to school," my father stated as I walked into the kitchen.

"What's wrong with it?" I asked, looking down at my outfit. I was wearing a slate pencil skirt that fell just below my knees, a long sleeve white blouse, a tailored blazer, and strappy black heels with a pair of nude pantyhose.

"That skirt is too short, and you have nothing on your legs. You look cheap," he said. I rolled my eyes.

"Dad, I'm wearing hose. Really. As for the skirt, it's the style now," I said, grabbing an apple out of the bowl on the counter.

"Maybe for pinup girls," he grumbled.

"Dad!"

"Calm down, dear," Mom sighed. "She's going to be late enough as it is. And she's within dress code."

My father continued to look sulky, but didn't say anything else on the matter. Instead, he shook out his newspaper and peered at it as he took a sip of his coffee, his eyes squinting at the printed words, probably bringing back more news of the war overseas.

"Oh, by the way, I'm going to have to go out of town for a week, starting tomorrow," he said. "Found out last night."

I met my mother's eyes and she looked startled, but not at the announcement. She was instead looking at _me_ in surprise. I didn't know what it was about that look, but it made me uneasy.

---

"Rebecca! Wait up!" I shouted as I ran, the best I could in heels, anyway, to catch up with my friend and schoolmate, Rebecca Lawson. Rebecca was the youngest child, and only daughter, of a Navy general and a local bakery owner. She had three older brothers, and I was incredibly jealous of this fact. I only had one sister, Cynthia, and she was so young that, as much as I loved her, she hardly counted. Her father had been sent overseas at the beginning of the war, and the closer he got to the end of his tour, the more obsessively she tracked the news, desperate to hear that he would be returning safely. I saw, as if to drive home this fact, that she had a newspaper folded under her arm.

"The way you can dash about in those shoes, you might consider becoming a flapper," she said with a laugh. I grinned and shook my head.

"I can just imagine the look on my father's face if I announced that I was going to move to Chicago or someplace like that to become a showgirl," I said. She nodded in agreement.

"So did you get your English paper finished?" she asked as we walked the last block to the school.

"Of course I did. If by _finish_, you mean made up some stuff and slapped it down on a sheet of paper," I said. I wasn't unintelligent, but I was fairly flighty and had trouble 'applying myself', as my teachers were so fond of saying.

"You amaze me," Rebecca said, shaking her head. "The truly astounding thing is that you will probably get a better mark than me."

---

Third period study hall bored me to tears. I relied heavily on my ability to recall the material that the teachers went over in class, because I couldn't for the life of me force myself to sit still and reread something I had already heard before. It was uncomfortable for me, like deja vu, as if I had heard it many more times than just the once that it was explained to me.

Every day, I brought a book to keep me occupied for the hour, and every day Rebecca would sweep it from my hands as she came into the room. Today was no exception.

"Dracula? Really, Mary?" Rebecca asked as she lowered herself into the seat beside me, inspecting the cover. "That's so grim."

"I find it fascinating," I replied, taking the book back and laying it, spine up, on my desk. "Think of it – to never have to wake up early, to be free to roam the night... to live forever, and never get older... To be strong, invincible... to see the centuries change around you, and be free to experience it all..."

"To live off of the blood of living things," she added, raising a light eyebrow.

"A minor technicality. You live off of the flesh of living things. How different could the blood be?" I said, waving a hand dismissively.

"Truly, Mary, you astonish me," Rebecca said. "In fact, if you weren't my best friend, and I didn't know better, I'd say that you were disturbed and mildly dangerous, and have you locked away in East State."

"Well, then I guess it's good that I can count you as a friend. I think I'd just kill myself and get it over with if they tried to send me there," I said, thinking of the stories that were told about the asylum in the distant town of Meridian.

"I'd have to agree with that," Rebecca said dryly. "Now go back to your morbid book. Some of us have to study for finals."

"I'll have you know I study a lot... When I feel like it," I defended myself and she rolled her eyes.

"Of course you do," she said skeptically. "I swear, I've never seen anyone with a stronger knack for guessing answers than you."

"It's a gift," I said, picking my book up and grinning as she opened her History book.

_The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time, he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living. Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow younger, that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty. _

_But he cannot flourish without his diet, he eat not as others. Even friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him eat, never! He throws o shadow, he make in the mirror no reflect, as again Jonathan observe. He has the strength of many of his hand, witness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolves, when he help him from the diligence too. He can transform himself into a wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog, he can be as a bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy. _

_He can come in mist which he create, that noble ship's captain proved him of this, but, from what we know, the distance he can make this mist is limited, and can only be round himself. He come on moonlight rays as elemental dust..._

Yes, I thought, though I had no true desire to be one of the damned, for that would be true insanity, it is still a remarkable concept, though far-fetched enough.

---

"I wish you would stop with that," I commented, taking a bite of my yogurt as Rebecca once more surveyed her newspaper. "It's not going to say anything that it didn't say this morning."

"Excuse me for being anxious," she muttered, folding the paper neatly and setting it on the bench beside her.

"I don't know why you're so worried," I said. "You know he's coming back."

"I do not know that. Hundreds of thousands have already died, on both sides, you know," she said.

"Your dad won't," I said confidently. "Call it my knack for guessing the correct answers."

"I'll call it your dumb optimism," she said with a sigh.

"You are so cold," I pouted.

"Hmm. Speaking of cold. How are things going with the elusive Mr. Darby?" she teased. I wrinkled my nose to hide the fact that my heart was suddenly beating double time.

"I wish you would stop with that," I said. "William Darby is the most detached, arrogant person I have ever met in my life." This much was not a lie. William Darby, the young partner at my father's law firm, was just full of himself, insufferable, a regular chore to be around... and absolutely, incredibly fascinating.

"And yet you get that gooey look on your face every time you talk about him."

"I do not," I said, trying to sound appalled. I'm fairly sure I failed, however, because a knowing grin was spreading across Rebecca's face.

"You _adore _him," she accused.

"There is absolutely no point in adoring a man who won't give you the time of day," I grumbled, thinking of the severe, disinterested expression that seemed to have painted his face every time I saw him.

"Have you ever asked him the time of day?" she asked, still grinning.

"Well, no, Rebecca, of course I haven't."

"Then how do you know he wouldn't give it to you?"

---

My father considered William Darby to be his protege. He had hired him directly out of law school and was so impressed with his work that he had made him a partner after two years. Brandon, Mason, and Darby, the sign on their building now read. He had the amazing talent of being both a genius and socially retarded, all in one fell swoop. The man wouldn't recognize a friendly gesture if it fell from the sky, knocked him flat on his back, and did a tap dance on his face.

His odious personality was only made worse by the fact that he was gorgeous, the closest thing I had ever seen to an Adonis on Earth. With dark, thick hair, strong, broad shoulders, and dark, sharply defined features. It seemed a crime that someone with so unpalatable a personality could possess such looks.

And who was situated in our dining room with my father, stacks of folders and leather-bound books stretching between them? That's right, Mister Arrogant Ass himself.

"Mary," my father said as I passed, interrupting my attempt to sneak by without having to interact with them. "How was school?" he asked.

"Fine. Turned in my English paper. Took full advantage off study hall to, you know, support my addiction to B-rated books that the good Reverend would frown upon. Ate lunch. Went to some more classes. Pretty much the usual," I said with a shrug. My father huffed and shook his head. The original lawyer, humour was sadly lost on him. And what a shame that was, truly. I relied on people taking my statements as jokes, so that I could tell them the truth and still avoid their scorn.

"Oh, are you still in secondary school, Miss Brandon?" Darby asked, barely bothering to look up from the folder that was open in his hands. This allowed me to sneer at him for a moment before fixing my sweetest smile into place. Condescending bastard.

"Yes, in my senior year, actually," I said politely.

"She works very hard, despite that mouth of hers. Honor roll, and all of that," my father said, and as disinterested as he tried to seem, the trained eye could see the swell of his chest that betrayed his pride.

"How wonderful. You'll make a very promising homemaker someday," Darby said shortly.

_Someday I will take over the law firm and kick you out on the street, _I thought, keeping my sweet smile firmly in place as I excused myself to go to my room.

"Oh, Mr. Darby," I added as a thought occurred to me. "Could you tell me the time?"

"No better than that watch on your wrist could," he said calmly, his dark eyes flitting up and meeting mine, a small smirk gracing his lips.

Damned arrogant Adonis.

---

**AN**: So, what do you think of this as an introductory chapter? Did you enjoy it? What would you change? What was your favourite part? I enjoy all feedback, so please feel free! :D

A thought on Alice's personality: teenagers are batshit crazy. Trust me, I know, I was one fairly recently. I tried to retain her general kindness, with the people who are important to her anyway. As for her attitude towards William, well... I'm a sucker for the love/hate. XD

So now, I'll stop talking and leave you to your reviewing. Cause you're going to review, right? /winkwinknudgenudge

As added incentive, all reviewers will receive a preview of the next chapter. :D


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